She def won wider than expected in the south, and Bernie under performed there, but Bernie over performed in OK, MN, and CO. Destroyed all of the polling projections and it's looking like he will finish Super Tuesday down the 150 delegates that the campaign had been projecting (still waiting on more numbers from MN), so actually still on target for their chosen state path to the nomination, although possibly down by 10-15 more delegates than they would've liked

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Hillary didn't won wider than expected. Bernie only expected to win Vermont yet he won multiple states.

Those polls are worthless for a few reasons, but mostly because they compare a Sanders that hasn't been seriously attacked yet with a Clinton that has been relentlessly attacked for decades.

For a small example, consider Sanders spending his honeymoon in the USSR. Some people know this, and the context of it. You might, but it isn't common knowledge. The fact is that were Sanders to be nominated there is about a trillion dollars of superPAC money out there that will seek to make it public knowledge.

And that is picking something that is at least mostly true, if slightly distorted. The GOP smear machine isn't going to be limited to merely all the pro-communist stuff Sanders actually did in his career, they will likely dig up plenty of nonsense as well.

In gambling terms if we were to use those polls as a line, all of this is built into the line when considering Clinton vs. a likely GOP candidate. It is not built into the line when considering Sanders, and that is important.

debacle - I agree with you about what those electability polls are showing. Those polls also have been showing Bernie being the better general candidate since Iowa, but it doesn't seem to make a difference, people still feel Hillary is more electable because she's more moderate, more experienced and has more fundraising/infrastructure for the campaign. I'm not saying I agree with that, it's just what the consensus seems to be and I don't think the polls staying the same will change that.

ST - Bernie was not expecting to win just one single state. He had a fine day, but he needed a great one, he was never at 50-50 in this thing, he's been working from behind since day one. I believe Hillary had people on the ground in Iowa looking for votes before he even declared his candidacy. Not to mention the support at the local level. She has a machine of money to spread around to local contests, and that's a huge deal as far as local support goes.

This is true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus

Except the media only reported on Paul.

Yeah, and the line shows that Clinton is already unelectable.

Bernie already draws votes from independents and even from republicans.

She is actually down in head to head general election match up polls. Those will not get better. Bernie at least starts out ahead.

Sorry, should say she won by much wider margins in the south than Bernie's campaign wanted her to win by.


Yeah he's definitely the underdog, but this past month Bernie also raised $10MM more than she did so it is clear they can at least compete with her financially. Looking ahead at the next few contests I can only see the gap narrowing between Bernie and Hillary.

I've played around with the delegate tracker on NYT and this is what him winning avg of 53% going forward looks like (obviously will be some blowout states for him (Oregon, Washington, etc) and some he loses, but 53% avg gives him the win)



http://i.imgur.com/LPPsdkR.png

Bill Clinton really holidayed in the USSR in the Brezhnev era and spoke to the KGB while there (based on his autobiography, the junior guy who was following him round pretty much admitted that was what he was doing therefore a conversation occurred) as well as visiting "his friends" in the ČSSR (in reality the Prague-based family of someone he met at university - I forget now whether it was Oxford or Georgetown). Of course its natural that a Rhodes scholar would find it fascinating to go on a backpacking visit the USSR, but that's at least as open to misrepresentation as a twin-town visit in the Gorbachev era and Bill Clinton still got elected. You can misrepresent things in politics but when people find out what you've done, they don't like that they've been taken for a ride.

Not sure which is sadder, the Bernheads who think they have a shot of derailing the Clinton/Wall St./Dem Party/public unions cavalcade of corruption or the Republicans tired of eight years of a destructive, know-nothing egomaniac realizing their party will probably nominate a destructive, know-nothing egomaniac.

Justice Department just granted immunity to long-time Hillary staffer that set up her private email (you know the one she set up to avoid Freedom of Information Act claims and that was stored in a washroom and held over a thousand classified documents and was well-know about in government circles which means enemies of the US probably hacked it).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...571_story.html

Gold's bet just got a bit more uncertain.

true all that

The Dumb , Dumber and Dumbest of options.

Bernie has at least one thing spot on. System is 100% Corrupt.

Campaign Finance and "lobbying" as it currently stands can best described as legalized bribery.

In most other parts of the world it is called Corruption and people go to jail. Here in U.S. we call it Lobbying with elected politicians beholden to uber rich who fund their campaigns. lets call Lobbying what it is..... CORRUPTION... Legalized Bribery.

Get the money out of the political system or its all just bull**** and nothing else will really matter as nothing will change in Congress, it will remain polarized with the both sides of the house unable to agree on ANYTHING ! The money just keeps pouring in from the far left and far right. No Money in Moderate, everyone solid.

Turn back Citizens United, eliminate most forms of lobbying, rework how campaigns are financed then and only then can U.S. democracy work as was originally intended.

^^^
Nice outrage, yet I bet you are still going support a person with a long-history of corruption and self-dealing that used the DNC to screw over Bernie.

This!

Also as an outside observer, I cant believe such an abomination of a human being that is Hillary is even considered for president, let alone curently being the favourite. I guess we live in a ****y world so its not so surprising.

nope. not supporting anyone running.

Even the capitalist pig in me would likely support Bernie vs anyone, as he is the only one talking about the #1 and only important issue. Massive amounts of corrupting money pouring into the system. Citizens United just put the already corrupt system on hyper steroids.

Until that issue is resolved nothing else matters, and NO elected politician matters.

The day they get in office they spend a good chunk of their time amassing a war chest for the next election cycle.

You two just made my bring them to heel list.



Gotta say I'm loling at the latest DOJ immunity story. That guy is completely in my pocket. Who do you think has been telling him to plead the fifth the entire time? They've been trying to get him to flip for months. Won't ever happen. My people will go to prison for me, no questions asked. Once I'm elected, I'll pardon them and give them six-figure do-nothing jobs in my administration. Bill waited until the last day of his administration to hand out the pardons, but I'm not a pansy like he is. I'll start on day 1. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. Haven't you ever heard of Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory? They paid me $107k for their pardons. Money in the bank, bitches.

One word:


Libertarian


If you believe in what that party stands for, vote for their candidates. They won't win this year, but if enough of us vote for them, then next time they'll get even more votes, and so on, until they are a viable third party.

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Unfortunately this is spot on and depressing. I have long said that if you do not get the money (especially the special interest/campaign donations) out of politics, it does not matter much who is in power or what we try to do to fix things. Except for a few key points, there is not much of a difference anymore between a Dem or Rep once they are in office. No matter what they preach, they are all for bigger government and personal monetary gain.

Also, an exclusive 2 party system just does not work anymore. Until there is a 3rd party with similar power to the traditional D's and R's, it is just goign to be a pissing match back and forth regardless of which one holds the Presidency. The other side will do whatever they can to not let the other side succeed in ANYTHING. We need a 3rd party buffer to help breakup the bipartisan disaster we have right now.

with all the advisors surrounding, anyone could probably perform the responsibilities

they said the same stuff about Arnold

and throw away a vote?

nah.

the last viable Lib candidate was Ron Paul a few elections ago and even he knew better and ran as a Repub

Lots of Libertarians have moved to supporting Bernie too since Rand dropped out. He has some Libertarian views in quite a few areas, and even if you disagree with him about a lot (like, obviously, his entire economic platform lol), he's the most likely candidate running to make it easier for third parties to run in the future.


Might even see the US change to an STV (single transferable vote) system under a Sanders presidency.

Sure... IF the U.S. magically becomes all self-sufficient adult white males, the libertarians will do fine.

The rest of us realize we're all in this together to one extent or another. Just because YOU never needed a helping hand or experienced systemic discrimination doesn't make libertarianism the right choice.

The only sanctioned "systemic discrimination" today is against white males as they do not receive the benefit of affirmative action programs (the black children of LeBron James would receive preferential admission over the white children of a poor Appalachian coal miner) and are often openly advertised as being shut out of jobs in the government.

As for needing a "helping hand," every study on the subject shows that Conservatives give far more to charity by a large margin than those that identify as Liberals. Perhaps that is because Liberals see it as the government's role to help others which allows them the luxury of not getting personally involved beyond a hashtag or a facebook post, who knows.

The smaller the government and tax bite the more the economy grows (GDP growth is inversely proportional to the share of government in the economy ... I could post a recent article on the subject -- with charts! -- but it really is incontrovertible) allowing people to have more after-tax money to do with as they wish, including charitable causes. No system is perfect, but no system has done more to lift and keep huge numbers of people out of poverty more quickly in the history of the world than free market capitalism.

I've only recently, in the last few years, become cognizant of the threat that bad immigration policy, open borders if you want, pose to the US as a viable nation.

I find the least fault in the libertarian worldview but that one flaw is a deal-breaker for me. I guess Reason magazine isn't the official party organ or anything though.

I can't listen to Trump for more than about 5 minutes. But he's got great taste in planes and women. Prolly be fun to have a beer with. And he ain't socialist...

Excellent post, was going to write something similar but you pretty much covered it.

I've experienced all kinds of systemic discrimination. It's pissed me off a few times. Problem is I'm a natural monomaniac and once something pisses me off I often stay not only intensely pissed off but intensely focused on the object(s) of my rage for uninterrupted decades entire. Just like the arch-WASP All American, Captain Ahab. (all in good fun though)


Monomania, I think it can be argued, is a uniquely Northern European affair. Northern Europeans having built the United States. Having successfully administered it thereafter.

I would say the best thing you can do to help eradicate perceived "systemic discrimination" is to just shut the f*** up about it.

Trust me.